Lebanonwire, January 31, 2003

The Daily Star

Mohammed Zaatari
Daily Star correspondent

Real estate registry paperwork formalities that used to be handwritten are now computerized and the public does not have to tip the middleman to complete them.
Property registry books in Sidon which had gathered dust over the years have now been safely put away in steel cabinets after all the information they contained was transferred to computers.
These changes were a result of a new modernizing job, which had started in 1996 and is currently ongoing.
The new computerized system covers 200 areas throughout the South, with each area covering thousands of properties.
Up to 100,000 files have now been filed away in the computers and 350,000 properties have also been registered in them. Every property is registered when its owners have been determined and listed. Details of what it contains are given, whether the property is mortgaged or its ownership is disputed.
Some of the details on the pages of the property registry books have faded with age, as they were written by hand over 40 years ago. Significant damage was done to the books during the civil war and during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
But under instructions from Interior Minister Elias Murr, due to a loan from the World Bank and in cooperation with the Canadian Development Agency, the books were computerized.
Some employees, who did not know how to handle the computers were provided with the necessary training to do so. As a result of the new system, an ownership deed can now be produced in one minute where it previously used to take 15 days to complete.
The archive work has now been organized in an underground warehouse and an official stands guard in the archives with some employees.
Every area and district also bear separate numbers and the villages have now been organized by alphabetical order.
In addition, the tips have now been cut in half.
“This is the greatest achievement,” a head of section in the Sidon branch said.
When he toured the new premises earlier in the month, Finance Minister Fouad Siniora was “quite impressed” with the new facilities. The next step is to link the property registry office in Sidon with those of Tyre and Jezzine. This enables any property registry office anywhere in the South to tap into the system and extract any deed requested by the public.

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